​We'd love to tell you all about the plot twists contained in Long Beach band Bella Novela's forthcoming album, the Archeress--but our words will definitely fail us. It's probably better to let singer Jackie Ojeda handle the specifics in the interview below, but let it  be said, it's fucking ambitious. Building on the classic rock elements laid down in the band's last album Battle Lines, their latest effort features bigger vocal arrangements and a mind-bending narrative involving a zombie apocalypse, drifters, vampires and archery. More >>

Brandon Ferguson

​Last night the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles hosted a panel discussion on the process of vinyl production as it pertains to small artists. Among the four panelists on stage at the Clive Davis Theatre was Infrasonic Sound owner/mastering engineer Pete Lyman, who was featured in my recent cover story on the resurgence of records in recent years. The discussion reinforced what people in the business have known for some time--that despite the recent increase in vinyl sales, it's still an indie band's game.

And the consensus at last night's discussion wasn't that any yuck with a garage band should start pressing platters; rather, the goal  was to give an idea of what goes into the process and what the options are. Rule number one: It ain't cheap. A quick estimate of the services from cutting the laquer, to pressing the product to manufacturing the jackets yielded a base total just north of $2,000.
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Christopher Victorio/OC Weekly

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Feb. 3, 2011
Fingerprints

Click here to see the photos!

There's not much on the walls, and all the merch that aren't CDs or vinyl are nowhere to be found, but if you squint long and hard enough, you can see that the new Fingerprints location near the intersection of Fourth Street and Long Beach Boulevard is going to be an improvement over the cramped quarters of its former Second Street abode.
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Santa Ana's multitasking Chris Alfaro, a.k.a. Free The Robots, is a busy man. Somehow finding time between co-running Orange County's beacon of all things hip the Crosby, he's written and produced one of the year's strongest local albums.
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Fans of ambient, indie rock tribe Set to Sea have been waiting a long time for the band to release their debut full-length, The Dark Has Found a Home in Me--a follow-up to The Last Solid Ground EP, released in April of 2009. You may remember them showing up in our Locals Only section last year. This video of their recording sessions last July shows just a slice of all the work that the Fullerton-based five piece squeezed into the final product. Finally, it's finished. More >>

The Hype: Ten shows in one day? Yes, San Diego indie rockers the Soft Pack were crazy enough to jump in a bus and travel across Southern California playing free shows to promote their self-titled debut album on NYC-based Kemado Records. Their fourth stop of the 10 included a visit to Fingerprints record shop Saturday to bash out a quick performance augmented by a stripped-down set by recent Sub Pop signees and Long Beach locals, Avi Buffalo. More >>

OK, so Taking Back Sunday are playing the Grove of Anaheim a week from today, June 3. Their new album, the appropriately titled New Again, comes out the day before. That doesn't really give you a lot of time to get to know all those new songs before the show. Bummer, right? Or is it? Well, helpfully enough, you can listen to the entire new record--their follow-up to 2006's major label debut Louder Now--on MySpace from now through Friday. Works out pretty nicely, doesn't it? (This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the album leaked to the usual dubious sources last week, but we know that Heard Mentality readers are absolutely an above board crowd.)

Lead single "Sink Into Me" is almost as catchy as "Make Damn Sure" (which, whether I like it or not, is still in my head three years later). The video's after the jump!

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HB/LB punks TSOL are releasing a new record. Sorta.

 

Last December, the group went into the studio to record its 16th album, Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Free Downloads on Hurley Records. The sessions were documented and can be found at the band's myspace page.

 

The tunes became available for download in January, but are getting a vinyl makeover thanks to DC Jam Records. The label says the album will be issued in limited edition colored vinyl and will hit the shelves sometime in September. 

Today isn't just your normal Tuesday. You've probably noticed. The air is thick with the smell of cogent lyrical metaphors and taut songwriting. It's a uniquely special day, a type of day that we haven't seen in nearly three years--a new Bob Dylan album day. Feel it. Love it.

Together Through Life is out today, following on the heels of his last three universally acclaimed releases: 2006's Modern Times, 2001's "Love and Theft" and 1997's Time out of Mind. It's also the shortest amount of time between studio albums since 1992's Good as I Been to You and 1993's World Gone Wrong. Not bad for an old, old man (68 next month!).

I'm a big Dylan guy--I wrote several now-embarrassing papers on him in college when I didn't want to write about "real" topics--so I'll probably share my thoughts on the record here. But I have to hear it first, natch. Off to my local independent record store!

Like tunes? Love British people? Then you must be so psyched right now, with these three new music releases out this week.

There's Art Brut's third album, Art Brut vs. Satan, which is at this point the only one I've heard all the way through (though I'm planning on remedying that soon!). There's a lot of talk that it's a "return to form" to the glory days of Bang Bang Rock and Roll, but I dunno, I thought It's a Bit Complicated was pretty cool, too ("di-rect hit! di-rect hit!"). This one is (unsurprisingly) a lot of fun, with second track "DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake" standing out (and hitting somewhat close to home, not gonna lie). Art Brut have a lot of LA dates coming up: several in mid-June at Spaceland and June 19 at the Echo, but nothing in OC. Still. Worth the drive, ya turkeys.
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